science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. a meteor comes crashing down in central russia leaving over twelve hundred people injured as buildings shook and windows smashed by the force of the blast. for the first time ever a republican senators stall the confirmation process of a proposed u.s. secretary of defense demanding chuck hagel answer more questions. and money troubles and belt tightening during the g. twenty meeting in moscow finance chiefs discuss the possibility of a currency war as well as the ongoing debt crisis.

in broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is r.t. certainly glad to have you with us now picture this it is eight fifty one in the morning in a mid-sized city east of the urals people are starting work or even going to school when the sky is lit up by the fiery path of the media were about to smash into the earth in the middle of russia one eyewitness was the canadian hockey player michael garnett who gave r.t.a. a firsthand account of the dramatic arrival. big bright like shiny across the sky you know blinding brighter than the sun and then it was followed by a huge. explosion what a minute or so later that broke glass mary's and the late fixtures were swaying back and forth and i don't point when looking out the window when i saw this giant

street going across the sky like the tail of the cloud of what what had just happened and i at that point i knew it was something that came from the sky immediately called one of my teammates who lives in my building and i you know i couldn't get through to him by phone in work so i was a little bit scared at the point the media or broke up in the earth's atmosphere resulting in multiple fragments falling near populated areas the incident triggered huge panic among people in the affected region as artie's you've got a piece going off reports well this was right about the time when most people were already at work the children were in schools and in kindergartens and all of the sudden this extremely bright flash of light one man told me that it actually hurts even looking at it many people managed to actually film what was going on many of these videos are now online here's the one actually picturing the moment of one of

the explosions. so the sounds of broken glass and all these alarms going off can be groovy good and all this it's really like a scene from a science by movie but it's real and we were shocked and found it in especially in the first few hours calling each other to find out what's happening and so many rumors from a jet which went down to a satellite and even to the start of the end of the world and actually artie's documentary team happened to be in the affected area writes what all this was happening here's how they described it. the feeling was like there are three shattering we thought a military jets may have crashed or that it was some manmade disaster it was a relief to find out it was a natural phenomenon. i was told that a plane crashed right into a building then we were told that a wall has been partly dislodged and metal structures inside were banned by the blast wave it was very scary over twelve hundred people were injured including over

two hundred children but thankfully these are minor injuries and related mostly due to all this glass flying around caused by these explosions. the side of the blazing skies made some people fear a nuclear catastrophe was unfolding in the region earlier my colleague bill dodd talked to our tease lindsey friends about why many people first feared an atomic and disaster. if you look at the area and its history you begin to understand why people are actually expressing relief at the fact that this was a rock falling from the sky and not a nuclear disaster there are seven nuclear fuel plants in that area in fact during soviet times it was sort of a nuclear playground for scientists where a lot of things were tested and nuclear experiments were done and there were actually two men made nuclear disasters there one in the fifty's and one in the sixty's so when you're driving to work or picking up your daycare and you see a huge bright flash and you hear an impact like this imagine what you think if you

live there not exactly the place you think. your should be total getting but of course interesting to know this region has experienced this sort of thing before yes it seems to be a magnet it's such a mystery to a layman like us who have no idea why something like a meteor would be so very attracted to eastern russia to siberia and even to southern russia one of the most famous meteorites ever to hit in one thousand eight the famous tom goes to goose scout meteor that they hit out in the very far east it cleared two thousand square kilometers of forest land it's shockingly huge and less than twenty years later another another meteor one nine hundred forty seven another and then another ten years ago in siberia at these were huge events. one of the children says about she'd been killed by a meteorite there very very slim and fact it's extremely rare to hear of anything there has been one case of a woman being injured by

a meteorite falling through her house this happened in the u.s. state of alabama in the one nine hundred fifty s. she was napping it's all right through the roof hit her on the arm now the shockwave from the media your has left over twelve hundred people injured and even destroyed several buildings but malique manager excuse me ma'am you know litter of space dot com claims it could have been much worse if it had come down in a more densely populated area. so this is the worst one and the first big one and you know it. also in so in a remote part of russia so you know that more than one hundred years you would you would hope that it would be longer than that more than a thousand people injured already just thousands of buildings you know severely damaged or collapsed from a shockwave didn't even hit the ground. much more. populated like moscow like new york city you can imagine that that same kind of damage on a much bigger scale would have substantially wider effect and impact on the people

that live there so you know it's not it's not great for the people that were here but it could have been much worse it was a bigger sit on our t.v. dot com we have live updates on the strike including how some enterprising locals are already cashing in by selling parts of the meteor online some of the most expensive pieces will set you back almost ten thousand dollars this as scientists say that the meteor was the largest recorded object to strike the earth in about a century. now it is estimated that it weighed about forty tons as it approached our planet before shattering into smaller pieces experts also say that when it exploded the meteor released a huge amount of energy making the blast even more powerful than the nuclear weapon tested by north korea just days ago specialists are currently examining a crater six meters wide where a piece of the meteor supposedly crashed now if you take a look right here this is an idea of what the the meteor could have looked like and

here is this crater that we're seeing in this hole in the ice another piece supposedly fell into a lake creating as i said this hole in the ice that you see right here. now republican senators have blocked of the vote to confirm chuck hagel as u.s. secretary of defense he is the first such presidential nominee for pentagon chief that this is ever happened to the senator's claim that they need more time for another hearing and are going to count comments. those who blocked the vote on chuck hagel nomination this thursday know very well that he will eventually be confirmed as defense secretary there are enough votes in the senate to confirm him but the stalling of the vote together with the humiliating treatment that the

senators gave chuck hagel two weeks ago at his confirmation hearing this whole process is seen as a message all by itself those lawmakers showed that they could crush anyone who would allow themselves to dissent from washington's core foreign policy beliefs chuck hagel remarks at the confirmation hearing disappointed even his supporters during the hearing which to me seemed like an inclination mr haygood had to backtrack on many of the statements he had made before including that war with iran should not be an option including his criticism of israel's actions and some other foreign policy views that he had expressed as a senator so throughout that long an exhausting hearing mr hague kept apologizing for much of the previous statements he had to take from previous positions he had taken and he bent backwards to show how quote unquote mainstream his views are in the senator's kept accusing him of not being again quote unquote mainstream enough to get the job chuck hagel swore to defend basically all of washington's foreign policy orthodoxies his confirmation process has been humiliating in many ways and

it demonstrated the state of u.s. foreign policy of policy basically intolerant of an ill turn to do vision alternative claud having said all that the president's decision to nominate chuck hagel of course knowing the position chuck hagel had taken before was also seen as a message president obama had said previously that there is too much of your talk going on and maybe by nominating chuck hagel he wanted to play down because too many people here in washington are too eager to talk war just during the confirmation hearing the word war was mentioned one hundred twenty times the word iran one hundred eight times by comparison of ghana's than the war that the u.s. is fighting right now just twenty six mentions of course those are just words but they may very well show. how eager many meeting in washington are to discuss new wars without even having finished the old ones and i t's going to japan for us there from the united states now paul craig roberts a regular administration official joins us now live from florida to discuss the

confirmation hearings on the hill mr roberts thank you very much for being with us . now this is an unprecedented move why are republicans blocking the confirmation of a presidential nominee for the defense secretary especially now when the country is at war i want to go alone is a bigger move the israel lobby. and there it his nomination is is being blocked because israel requires the united states senators to show their. its obligation and specter israel she has. made a mistake some years ago when he said that he was an american senator not an israeli senator and that israel doesn't stand for that everybody member of the house and senate has to vote the israeli law on it and if they don't they're

usually defeated in the next election and so what you're seeing here is the demonstration of the power of israel all over the united states congress and this instant to come up like god was in those in the last presidential election in the united states the israeli prime minister who supported. obama was opponent. and he did president of the united states and a very demeaning way and so obama now is answering back to the israeli prime minister by appointing a u.s. senator who did a very very rare thing and asserted his independence. of the israeli government now you mentioned of the power of this is israeli lobby the senate has chastised table for his views on iran and his perceived anti israel stance if he gets the job is he going to be able or will he even be willing to push

for any real policy change. well that remains to be seen. i don't really know what the outcome of him being in the office would be and. traditionally israel has been able to control the united states foreign policy in the middle east. and whether or not the offense that the israeli prime minister gave to president obama will change that or whether the president obama himself has enough power to change that remains to be seen but so far you go hasn't been confirmed. right now you know republican senators say that they want more answers from hagel but how much is this about information and how much of this is about embarrassing the president and none of it is about information it's about showing their subservience to israel they have to show that if they don't they get

cut off from campaign funds and the israel lobby is very powerful and has tremendous influence in the media it can support the. the opposition candidate it can drive anyone in the senate or the house out of office and so what you want you witnessing is the united states congress showing that it is subservient it is a good friend of israel whether in the in after shoring all this. and placating israelis they then vote in favor of hagel that could be an outcome this may simply be saying look we're we're showing our loyalty to you as you will please don't hurt us and the next election and forgiveness because we may have to vote in a now what exactly did hagel do to make such enemies with israel i mean what was

his stance before and and what did he do to basically. tick them off and i don't remember the context in which he stated. that i'm an american senator i'm not an israeli sent. i represented american interests not israeli interest i think it must have been some boat in which he voted against the israel lobby. this this happens very very rarely in the united states do you hear from any elected official. especially at the federal level any saw. a statement that implies that they won't jump at israel's command most of them will jump at israel's command you can see any time miserables the resolution it passes almost unanimously. anytime there's a vote that has to do with israeli interest it passes almost unanimously so there's

really it's impossible to be a member of an ice age trying to assist and remain in the congress if you oppose israeli interests or you even sure that you have independent faults about what about israeli interests so that's what hagel did and he showed that he wasn't the complete puppet that he had some independence of mud and this is not tolerable to the israel lobby. all right thank you very much for your thoughts on the subject appreciate you with your experience on this thanks for being with us here on r.t. . and still to come this hour for you libya prepares to mark the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled gadhafi. preparations including setting up roadblocks across the country and nato forces gathering in the capital as the number of those protesting against the new government increase.

sometimes you see a story and it seems. you think you understand it and then something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

these are the images. you're with are certainly glad to have you with us. g twenty finance chiefs have met in moscow to discuss a potential currency war as well as the european debt crisis for russia the gathering is seen as a launch pad for the g twenty summit later this year. has been following the talks in the kremlin. a lot of conflicting statements have been said about this talk of the impending looming currency war which has led some folks some market watchers to be quite confused as to what we'll actually see coming out of this g. twenty talks here in moscow now at the center of the whole controversy of crisis is

japan due to its aggressive monetary and fiscal policies it has seen a weakening of the and so what this has resulted in this essentially a clash between the countries very little consensus we did hear from a russian finance minister. who has said that this is certainly an important issue that of currencies that is very much on the table but at the very same time we've seen other world leaders come up and say that you know what currency wars aren't really a threat they're trying to calm down the market to some have even questioned whether japan's actions constitute as a manipulation of the currency basically when a country is in the dire fiscal situation such as of course as we all know many countries are today like japan for instance is one option that a country has is to devalue its currency so making something like this a twenty dollar bill worth less you can do that by a variety of means for example me printing cash because why would you want to do that when your currency is worth less your manufactured goods are cheaper on the market and that gives you

a temporary boost in the economy which could be pretty critical in tough times like this now what we've actually seen the fear here is that when a country does that your trading partner strike back they say ok we're going to lower the value of our currency and that sets off a currency war such as the one that we saw in the one nine hundred thirty s. which has led to the great depression now japan insists that it is simply trying to stimulate as kwame it's not doing anything to prompt a full scale currency war of course no country here wants to see that but the reason that we're seeing so much disagreement and so little consensus among the countries is that you know what for example the united states its policy isn't all that the. the fed in the us has been printing money like crazy so these developed countries don't really see any incentive in isolating japan in trying to really squeeze down this currency manipulation issue because they don't want to mess around with their economies essentially said that is really the crux of the issue.

what would you do if you happened to find a four thousand dollar diamond ring. many would keep it but as we report online one american homeless man did not hesitate and promptly returned it to its owner and as it turns out this wasn't the first time he had acted so honorably find out more on r.t. dot com. plus america is known as the land of the free but online we have the story of one man who does not seem to cherish his freedom as much as others after he robbed a bank just to get sent back to jail. or . libya has braced for fresh on rest the second anniversary of the revolution that toppled

gadhafi is being held under the threat of violence security is tight and foreigners are leaving and mass the first protests against the current government are expected in benghazi the birthplace of the revolution political analyst brahimi outlines where libya stands two years after the uprising and the walked we have seen over the last two years in libya is that this integration of a new form of sun throw control paving the way for the fragmentation of the country into three states at the same time the lawlessness in the country there is an outgrowth of fundamentalists. some of the chrome on that has spilled over and somali as we have seen over the last couple of months and a little bit. more than two months and at the same time we have this but sort of. strife breaking out between the front militias and the country so yes

a lot has changed but not for the better thousands of anti-government protesters have packed a major highway in the bahraini capital of manana that's less than two days after one teenager was killed and dozens of demonstrators were wounded on the second anniversary of the pro reform uprising in the country london based bahraini activist dominique cabot said that the government is not trying to resolve the standoff peacefully. we're looking at two years in which we've seen no reform we've seen nothing change i mean we started this uprising two years ago and on that day the monster of the uprising was killed and now two years later on the same day the fourteenth of february another teenager has been killed and this really shows and displays the lack of reform continuous human rights abuses the continuous repression taking place on the streets of basra and it's good that dialogue has come back on the agenda and there is discussions happening but it seems that you

know this latest escalation of security against the people is going to possibly put dine in jeopardy within the ruling family i think of course there are those who simply want to please the international community to say look we're having this dialogue and there is not a great thing was continuing the violations on the streets the people have come out on the streets time and time again saying that they they won't go out and they said you know go until there's reform and i think the fact that they stayed out. clearly proves that. the only solution is through dialogue and i think the regime has to realize that. until now to some other world news brief for you this hour at least one hundred fifty rebels and government soldiers have been killed in two days of heavy fighting in the northern city of aleppo according to anti regime activists rebels launched several attacks on wednesday in a fresh attempt to seize control of the city's civilian airport and a nearby military airfield the militants have been trying to take over the airport

for months now as it will give them a vital strategic advantage against president assad's forces. a peaceful rally outside a prison in the west bank has turned violent after palestinians started throwing stones while israeli police responded with tear gas officials say around two hundred people took part in the clashes the demonstrators gathered outside the facility demanding the release of a prisoner who has gone on hunger strike to protest against his detention the man has not. since august and is now suffering serious health problems. i'll be back with more news in around thirty minutes time but after a short break our special report on the gray zone of european democracy.

helicopters flying through the air day and night rounds of assault rifle ammo popping as the choppers buzz over the land now this unique form of hell of terror is no longer restricted to those in vietnam in the middle east now houston miami residents of the good old usa can get in on the fun houston residents in terror called nine one one and scrambled for cover and even to schools put on lockdown as a military helicopters participate in a multi-agency training for ill in miami at night in the middle of downtown onlookers caught video on their telephones of blackhawk helicopters pumping loud blank on to the people below and maybe even as i speak a flexibly scheduled military drill could be happening in jesper county south carolina you know when i was a kid they tell us about how that year old soviet union would parade their tanks around how there were soldiers all over their oppressed country even in one

thousand nine hundred four or will meet in a point to describe our military helicopters would eternally be overhead and a dystopian nightmare world now we're living the nightmare the united states is a huge country there's plenty of room on remote army bases to do your training also last time i checked afghanistan evil which is don't look like downtown miami just who are you training the kill anyways knock off the terror training but that's just my opinion. every six months there was an e.u. summit and every six months to your team that's just

a few days before. location and they were kept confidential the booking was made two years in advance. left behind was a clear message to the following you summit on the heads of governments a few days later. adopt the single market the monetary union infrastructure projects a flexible labor market deregulation downsize public services austerity measures and so on and so on the whole your liberal agenda for the basically our picture got confirmed by an american scholar stepping into the topic maria green cowles i was interested and doing something about europe and something about the european union i started talking with some of the c.e.o.'s and in particular the corporate affairs managers of these firms to ask them what happened and everybody had

a little piece of the story and then i met with keith richardson. keith and i would talk about different things and he would give me some ideas and i'd go and i'd talk with other individuals and then i'd come back with more questions and sometimes steve had the answers and sometimes they didn't and finally i believe it was on my seventh meeting with keith when i said to keith you know i can write about this i can have all these different interviews but i really want to see the pieces of paper he said to me well you know i have a bunch of cardboard boxes in the basement of the we haven't opened them they're from the earlier days we just we just put this material in the boxes and of course and you know in the back of my mind i was very excited thinking this is it. murray a green calls came across a tell xx.